How Zach Cregger's Resident Evil Delivers a Subversive and Shocking Ending

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Resident Evil.For a movie based on a video game series that's made a name for itself as a testament to human resilience and survival against impossible odds, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil sure serves up a brutal kick in the teeth of an ending. For fans of the video games' traditionally triumphant resolutions, it's a narrative decision that's likely to be divisive. But if you're willing to lean in to the Weapons filmmaker's penchant for expectations-upending final acts, it's one that offers some good old fashioned horror nihilism.Cregger's adaptation tells an original story in the Resident Evil universe rather than faithfully adapting any of the games, building on previous films, or pulling in legacy characters. Still, the movie manages to successfully capture the atmosphere and experience of playing through a new installment in gaming’s most storied survival horror franchise, first launched in 1996 by Japanese developer Capcom. Like a fair share of Resident Evil leads who came before him, our protagonist, medical courier Bryan Hodukavich (Austin Abrams), finds himself thrown into a nightmarish fight for survival against uber-aggressive biolog...